Your Netflix and iFlix subscriptions are about to get more costly

Hang on to your subs folks, because GST is coming for your Netflix and iFlix subscriptions.

The Goods and Services Tax (GST for short) might be coming to digital streaming services very soon as the government has plans to start taxing our favourite services.

As it was confirmed in a recent press conference, Customs director-general Datuk Seri Subromaniam Tholasy stated that online streaming services will be included in the Customs Department’s proposed amendments to the GST Act.

Said amendments will include foreign companies that are doing business online with Malaysian customers, which is where services like Netflix falls in. At the moment, online services are not taxed by the Malaysian government and Malaysians are free to use sites such as Steam, Amazon and the Google Play Store without additional fees.

Subromaniam further added that the amendments will allow Putrajaya to collect billions in taxes from the digital economy and in turn boost the economy as a whole.

The proposal will be submitted to the Finance Ministry to be tabled later this month.

If you’re thinking that “oh no, they’re finding more ways to tax us just because” you’re not entirely right because other countries (like in the European Union, Germany and France specifically) have been pushing towards similar taxes as well, so it’s pretty much just a matter of when.

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